Owen, Robert (1771–1858)

Abstract

Born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire (Powys), in 1771, Robert Owen was in many ways both the child and the victim of his age, making his fortune as a cotton manufacture involved in the industrial transformation of Britain and dissipating it in his efforts to eliminate its evils. With the purchase of the New Lanark cotton mills in 1797 Owen did, for a time, successfully combine the roles of factory owner and social reformer, showing how a humanized working environment might effect a reformation in human character. For the modern social scientist, one interesting innovation Owen implemented was the silent monitor, a four-sided block that was hung next to each worker’s machine; a supervisor would turn the block to a colour that reflected the worker’s effort during the day; colours were recorded in a ‘book of character’. (See Podmore 1906, based on Owen’s autobiography.) The silent monitor was meant to substitute for corporal punishment as a discipline device; it resonates with recent thinking on social sanctions; see pecuniary versus non-pecuniary penalties.